When the best of both worlds – pets and technology combine, we get Pet Idle, a virtual pet game for your smartphone! This idle-type mobile game was developed by AlphaQuest Game Studios and packs loads of fun for virtual pet lovers. Check out our guide and review of Pet Idle!
How Does Pet Idle Work?
True to its namesake, Pet Idle is designed to be a rather low-maintenance game. Your role in this game is to care for and collect various virtual pets that live in a home – you’ll feed, play, clean and even earn coins and diamonds to decorate and provide for your virtual furkid.
Your home is divided into two parts – the main living area where you’ll place your pet’s necessities and decor, and the garden where you can grow plants and hunt for various collectables in the form of relics, fish and insects.
Adopting Pets in Pet Idle
When you first start the game, you’ll be given the option to pick between a dog or a cat, and your pet’s personality will be chosen randomly. However, you do get the choice to re-roll for a better pet personality by viewing a video ad.
As you progress, players will get to adopt more pets – be it with diamonds or energy. The rarer the pet, the more expensive it gets. You can pay with energy for normal and rare-grade pets or with diamonds for legendary pets. Not keen on purchasing diamonds? You might just get lucky during the daily Lucky Spin. On the 7th and 30th day of the daily check-in, you’ll score yourself a sweet pet too!
There are up to 19 pets to collect, and AlphaQuest Game Studio has also recently added two new pets into their latest February 2023 update – the Jackalope and Bengal Cat. The legendary-class Jackalope is an adorable rabbit and deer hybrid, while the Bengal Cat is a rare feline with beautiful orange and tan markings.
Caring For Pets In Pet Idle
Caring for your pets on Pet Idle is straightforward – the tutorial walks you through feeding and taking necessary care of your virtual pets. The basics are a water bowl, a food bowl, a bed, a bathtub and a ball for them.
The pets can take care of themselves for water & food as long as you replenish it, but for baths and play, you’ll need to interact with them (drag them to the tub, or throw the ball around the room). You can also tap on them to make them sit and have a cute heart animation appear.
Don’t neglect your pet for too long! When the health bar is completely depleted, your pet will faint. There’s a 30-minute recovery period, or you can fix it instantly by feeding them an apple grown from your garden or a diamond each. A pet care tip: send your pet to the pet hotel (accessible by clicking the blue paw button) when you know you’ll be busy!
Training Your Pet In Pet Idle
As your pet levels up, you’ll get the option to teach them new tricks. There are 4 types of tricks that they can perform. Each of them has a unique animation:
- Sitting (green): Your pet does tricks to restore happiness and social needs
- Bath (blue): Your pet takes a bath on its own
- Running (red): Your pet runs to eat or drink
- Napping (purple): Your pet sleeps off its tiredness to completely replenish its energy
Earning Coins, Energy & Diamonds in Pet Idle
When your pet’s needs are fulfilled, they’ll drop coins and energy which you can tap to collect. On the other hand, diamonds are either gained when purchased, or through lucky spin, daily check-ins or through completing Henry’s quests. There are also other methods to gain coins and energy:
- When fleas are about to attack
- When you clean up after your pet’s poop or pee (tip: get the cleaner robot to auto-clean for you!)
- Selling caught insects, fish, relics and fruits (minimum 100 coins per item sold)
- Utilise the daily lucky spin chance & check-in
What Does The Garden Do In Pet Idle?
Pet Idle has also extended gameplay to include a garden (accessible by tapping the red tree icon from your pet’s home), and you can decorate it as you see fit. You can plant trees to grow fruits, which can be sold for money or to replenish your fainted pet’s health, and a few other money-making activities.
Once you hit trainer level 2, you’ll unlock the bug net and fishing pole. Insects will spawn in the garden and will be flying about on the screen, and you’ll need to have your net out to nab them on time. Time your catch within the green bar and you’ve got it in your inventory!
To go fishing, you’ll need to build a pond. Once you’ve caught a fish, you’ll have to spam the green fishing pole button to fill up the blue bar, or else the fish may escape. The rarer the fish, the faster you’ll have to tap!
The game doesn’t teach you how to find relics, but if you let your pet out to wander (by tapping the sun icon near your home entrance) and you switch to visit your garden, your pet would appear there. Wait for it to dig until dust clouds appear and a relic should be found! Relics also vary in rarity.
Customising Your Pet Idle Home
Decorating your pet’s home is rather simple and straightforward – tap on the hammer and ruler icon on the top right of the screen, and you’ll enter edit mode. There’s a rather large variety of decor that you can choose from, which you can pay for using coins or diamonds.
Hate having a bare room when you’ve just started your Pet Idle game? Here’s a tip! Most players will know that you can get free furniture via daily check-ins or the Lucky Spin, but did you know you can also get free items if you visit Alpha Game Studios on their social media channels? These are what you will receive:
- Youtube: Aquarium
- Facebook: Luxury Dog Rug
- Instagram: Black Couch
- Discord: Japan Light
However, each item is only redeemable once and will only be unlocked to purchase upon reaching the specific trainer level.
Is Pet Idle Worth It?
Since it’s totally free to download and play – why not try it out yourself? With cute pets that will bring smiles to anyone with their antics, Pet Idle is a must-download for those who like having a pocket pal on your smartphone.
While this game is free to play, remember that it still has microtransactions enabled. If you’re looking to play this game in the long run, it’s best to purchase diamonds to remove in-game ads, as it tends to get really annoying when you press selected buttons to care for your pet.
Although some special items can only be purchased with diamonds, the game is still playable even in free-to-play mode. Yes, the game rewards you with diamonds occasionally, but it’s not as easy to come by, and you’ll have to monitor your stash.
Where To Download Pet Idle?
Pet Idle can be downloaded for free on Google Play, the App Store and Steam.
